Bluetooth takes a bite of the Apple

By Garry BarkerApril 4 2002
Livewire

Harold Bluetooth was a Viking royal, the first-born son of King Gorm, and the
word from the 10th century is that not even Mrs Gorm would have called her son
a sweet-natured lad. Bluetooth applied diplomacy with a sword and, aided by
the usual experts in rape and pillage, united Denmark and Norway.

This ability to connect things was passed down the centuries to the scientists
at Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, who borrowed the king's name for their very
short-range wireless technology that has now begun to take off big-time, as
they say in the smarter coffee shops of Silicon Valley. Wireless Bluetooth connects
personal devices, mobile phones and computers.

Apple has now built Bluetooth into Mac OS X. You need an adaptor ($99 from
an Apple Centre or reseller) to plug into any USB-equipped Mac and a software
update, downloadable from the Apple website (www.apple.com.au/bluetooth).

The software is typically Macintosh, automatically detecting all the Bluetooth-equipped
devices within range. Click on the one you want, hit the "pair" button on the
screen and you are immediately connected at one megabit per second.

If two people have PDAs or laptops equipped with Bluetooth chips, they can
send each other information without needing to stand close and point (if one
may use the term), as is necessary with infrared. Similarly, you could use a
Bluetooth-equipped keyboard or mouse. The signal hops among 79 frequencies at
1MHz intervals to give a high degree of interference immunity.");document.write("

advertisement

");
}
}
// -->

That Apple should adopt Bluetooth is much in pattern. It was first to build
in Ethernet as standard, first with FireWire (well, it invented it), first of
the computer companies to use 802.11(b) wireless connectivity (in Airport);
now Bluetooth. It also resurrected the USB that Wintel makers were ignoring.

Bluetooth works over a radius of up to 10 metres at one megabit per second
and is used to connect, say, a mobile phone to a laptop or a wireless earpiece
(so you don't have that damned hands-free wire dangling from your face) or to
an in-house local area network.

Bluetooth is very big in Europe and popular here among aficionados; although
less general in the US, it is increasing in popularity. The Holiday Inn on Wall
Street, New York, for example, allows guests to sign in using Bluetooth-equipped
mobile phones.

Rising Rams

Rising costs for RAM and higher prices for flat LCD screens are blamed for
the $200 increase in the price of all iMac models announced at Macworld Tokyo
by Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs. He also apologised for under-preparing for the roaring
success of the flat-screen iMacs and said production was now running at 5000
units a day as the company moved to overtake the orders still flooding in. Delivery
delay has been reduced from six weeks to about four and should soon get much
shorter.

RAM prices look like being a problem. If you're thinking of boosting memory
in your Mac, do it soon. Last week a 256MB chip cost around $200. This week
it's up $30, and in some places more.

Some commentators have exclaimed that the iMac price rise opposes established
industry trends. Maybe, but Apple isn't the only company doing it. Gartner,
the US industry analyst, reported last week that Wintel prices are going up
- at least 10 per cent this month - in response to higher component prices in
Taiwan and China. Wintel laptop prices in the US rose about 17 per cent last
month, though Apple has not increased the price of iBooks or PowerBooks.

More from Tokyo

Also announced at Macworld Tokyo was an iPod with 10-gigabyte hard drive, up
from 5GB, so you can now hold 2000 songs in the palm of your hand. It is on
sale here for $1095, compared with $895 for the five-gig device. Toshiba is
apparently ceasing production of its 5GB tiny-drive, but the smaller iPod will
continue on sale at least while drive stocks last.

The other Tokyo announcement was a 23-inch widescreen flat-panel Cinema Display
monitor, aimed at multimedia and graphics professionals (and very rich amateurs),
especially those working in high-definition TV. In Australia it sells for $7599.
The earlier and notably cheaper 22-inch Cinema Display will continue to be sold.

Broadly misleading

Our item on the weirdness of our telecoms carriers' approach to the Macintosh
and their broadband services has attracted a rash of responses from readers.

Richard Taylor, who describes himself as a "self-confessed Mac junkie and new
media developer", says he has been using Telstra's ADSL service for about 10
months, both in Sydney and in Melbourne. In each city, he says, the technicians
were trained on Macs and "more than happy" to connect them to the broadband
network using either OS 9.x or 10.x.

"I have certainly had my share of network problems since being connected to
ADSL, and (Telstra's) support is not always up to scratch, but in this instance
I feel they should be defended," Taylor says.

Similarly with Optus. Their formal approach is "no support", but when the technician
turned up, he was pleased to see the Macs. Optus also has Apple-trained people
in its technical support staff but does not, apparently, tell the public.

Our point is that Optus and Telstra do not help themselves or their customers
by telling people they "don't support" OS X when it is obvious that the Mac
system is easier to connect than anything of the Windows variety. The idea is
to get people on to broadband, not turn them off.